Dear Friends, Naomi Wolf has written a book detailing ten steps which she suggests are involved in building a fascist state.
While I haven't read her book I have translated her steps into questions which you may like to answer in light not only of the recent Protest Marches in America and the APEC Summit in Australia but many events during the last few years (Children Overboard, Boat people, WMDs, Iraq, etc, etc).
If your answers are 'YES' to these ten questions then you may want to panic, join the World Utopian Movement!
IS YOUR GOVERNMENT:
1. Constantly trying to establish that there is a terrible, imminent terrorist threat on home soil as well as an apocalyptic external threat such as Iran?
2. Involved in establishing secret prisons or periodically emptying existing prisons to allow for the jailing of protesters?
3. Developing paramilitary forces like riot squads or beginning to use existing police forces as unidentifiable stormtroopers?
4. Carrying out secret surveillance of ordinary citizen's emails, bank accounts, etc, in contravention of existing laws?
5. Infiltrating citizens' groups and watching dissenters on the internet?
6. Arbitrarily detaining and releasing citizens at will (Hicks, Haneef, etc)?
7. Targeting important individuals who speak out against the increasing loss of human rights or the ignoring of global warming using dirt files?
8. Restricting the press by using overt and covert pressure on them not to report certain items, casualty figures, etc, as well giving out false, misleading information or withholding important information?
9. Describing all criticism of its actions as "espionage" and any dissent as "treason"?
10. Subverting the rule of law by arbitrarily imposing Executive power in place of that of the independent Judiciary (Haneef)?
Well, how did you go? Did you get the same score that I did? I fear that we are inexorably sliding towards a fascist state, one run by unscrupulous, self-serving, right-wing politicians and corporations.
What do you think?
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Slide Towards Fascism?
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7 comments:
All of the above and I wasn't talking about Australia.
Have you been keeping up with the flap over here about moveon.org? I expect the knock on my door any time now.
In Australia, we are heading towards that stage, Granny!
I must have a long, long file by now and I'm proud of it. Freedom, equality and justice is worth fighting for. Peace.
If I was being uncharitable I could argue that France satisfies all of the first 8 and probably numbers 9 and 10.
However, I don't think this means I am living in fascist state, nor that France is on the way to fascism. I doubt that many of the people living here who lived through WWII would see too many parallels between 21st century France and 20th century Nazi fascism.
Dylan, the thought of you being uncharitable is more than I can bear!
I've been reading some of your work on Club Chaos and about you on Telling the History. That explains why every comment you make on Seeking Utopia is either nit-picking or white-anting or, more typically, both.
Stick with the right-wing Club Chaos, Dylan. It's more you!
Best of luck, Daniel.
And best of luck to you to, Dylan!
Great post, Daniel! I'm anxious to read her latest. She gives a great interview on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman this past week that you might want to check out.
It's all quite frightening.
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